So it’s that wonderful time of year again. The time of year where we look at the few good times had by The Pilgrims and Native Americans. The time of year where Turkeys becomes the “it girls” of family meals, and the time of year where people are traveling back to their hometowns to celebrate a great holiday that I like to call: Thanksgiving. However, due to having moved to a new city, traveling the world, or (in my case) going to college, those people will be returning home to their families after a long hiatus away from them. For me, behind the veil of the unparalleled joy of Thanksgiving, we see an anxious young man chewing on his fingernails in the fetal position worrying about anything and everything that deals with going home. How will everyone react? Am I different? Do I seriously want to go home? Will I make my flight? Will a plane hit my plane? And if that last one doesn’t kill me, what (if anything) can? So many questions and hypothetical situations that are racing through your mind, but the biggest one is probably: how am I going to deal with all this?

Luckily, I’m not the only bitch in the game dealing with this crap. So if you’re in the same sinking ship that I like to call the "S.S Thanksgiving Return" boat, then here are the stages you might go through:

Stage 1: Excitement

So it’s been what, four months since you’ve seen your family and friends back home? There are a lot of cool things back where you grew up: good food, decent sights, pets, and liquor stores. Yes, there’s a lot to go back to and seeing how you’re not going to be home for very long, you want to do everything and then some. Do something crazy! It’s kind of like an end of the world scenario since you’ll only be home until Thanksgiving, leaving yourself the option to do anything you want that doesn’t technically qualify as illegal. You’re practically, just as powerful as a honey badger with a rocket launcher, and there’s nothing that can stop you! Or is there?

Stage 2: Realization

While on your little power trip you begin to wonder why you're even left your home in the first place. Even if you didn’t really have a choice, you still spent a huge chunk of your life in this place, So wanting the get the hell out of said place means one of two things:

You just want to explore the world and expand your horizons,

Or

THE PLACE YOU GREW UP IN FUCKIG SUCKS!

Suddenly all the bad memories begin to pop up. Memories like how you were never invited out to any parties, or when everyone in kindergarten found out that you liked the cute Asian girl in class, or when you had to make makeshift knives and fight for survival on those streets. It’s high school all over again! Aww man, what did you just get yourself into?!?! At this point you’re freaking out. But hey you can’t turn back now, I mean, you did just drop a few hundreds on this plane ticket. Now all you can do is put on your big kid pants and take your sad ass to the (insert mode of transportation here) station.

Stage 3: Regret

Ugh, you’re going back home. At this point you realize that you don’t want to do this, and if you haven’t realized it yet then read Stage 2 again To make matters worse, drake is doing a super secret underground show right before Thanksgiving in the place where you live now and you know the exact time and location. In fact! The place is literally your house/apartment and to top it off, you were personally invited by Drake himself to see the show…ok so Drake didn’t invite you, but still. Awesome things will be going down and you’re going to be missing them because you decided to eat a turkey on a Thursday. The only thing that could make your current situation worse would be having to be around people who know most if not all of your weaknesses. Oh wait! You will have to be surrounded by these people won’t you? Well, at least there will be turkey…and blood…but mostly turkey. Which leads us to the next stage.

Stage 4: Denial

So you’ve weighed the cons and cons of your decision to go home this Thanksgiving. Right about now your sitting waiting for your ride back home and suddenly you see a little glimmer of hope. A glimmer I like to call delusion. You’ve recognized that there’s going to be a lot of un-pleasantries that go along with your trek back home, but instead of sulking, you begin to paint a bright side on something and look at it. Will you be bored out of your mind because there’s nothing fun to do? Yes. But this gives you time to get some reading done, and if you can’t read, it’s a great time to learn how to read. Are there multiple people back home who annoy the hell out of you? Of course! And seeing them again will just build up your tolerance for hoes you don’t like. Did you and your friends accidentally kill a man one summer and swear to each other that you wouldn’t tell anyone? OBVIOUSLY! And now you finally have the chance to turn yourself into the authorities, or better yet, turn your ordeal into a screenplay that’s already been written. Everything’s an up if you turn it the right way! So now that you feel slightly better, we slowly ease into the final stage…

Stage 5: Acceptance

And now we have come to the final part of our ordeal, and for some reason we feel fine, good even? After all that worrying about being home for the holidays you finally make it there, and everything is pretty okay. Your family members aren’t total assholes, and it seems like everybody who annoyed you when you lived here is either dead or nowhere to be found. Some of the good things you thought would happen when you arrived are actually happening, there’s free food, lower sales tax, and you even have a pet! Unless your pet died, in which case I apologize for bringing up some bad memories; unless your pet was anything other than a dog or cat, in that case you deserve every bad memory you have. Magically, all seems right in the world, and with Thanksgiving coming up in either one day or a few hours, like French Montana, your not worried bout nothing but a dying rap career. So go get drunk, you deserve it.

And after these 5 stages, you have successfully survived going home for Thanksgiving, and look at that! Your ego’s only missing one of the vital organs! Now you get to return to your real home and get back into the swing of things, and isn’t that what you should’ve done in the first place? I mean seriously, had you just stayed home you could’ve saved me all this trouble of writing a long ass, funny ass, and informative ass article. So whether your going back to your origins or being thoughtful of others (me) and not going, just remember that the holidays are a celebration bitches, Mozel tov, and you deserve to be happy during them. So be happy. So with that said…